Abstract:

This paper systematically examines the impact of different ownership structures (government, foreign, and private shareholdings) on the size of listed companies in Ghana, focusing on whether these characteristics catalyse a potential for corporate growth and scalability. A sample of 25 listed firms (10 financial and 15 non-financial) covering the period 2011-2021 was included in the study. A panel-corrected standard error modelling technique was adopted while the pooled OLS, fixed-effects, random-effects, RE-GLS autoregressive order one, Arellano-Bond GMM, and system GMM estimators were used for robustness tests. The findings underscore the importance of di verse ownership structures and effective board composition in influencing firm size and scalability in Ghana. The results show that government ownership, foreign ownership, substantial private shares holdings, board size, and having a woman as board chair significantly promote firm size and scalability while having an increased number of nonexecutive directors on corporate boards is detrimental to long-run growth and scalability. The results further reveal that firm profit and women representation on boards do not affect the size and scalability of firms. Excessive board independence is detrimental, hence the need for a balanced approach to governance. Regulations should facilitate and support increased foreign and significant private ownership to foster greater capacity and development of company sizes. The need to emphasize and support the practice of including women as board chairpersons, leveraging the strong, positive links this has with company scale, and prompting the growth of a basis for a push towards improving gender-inclusive corporate leadership roles is further recommended.

Keywords:

Ownership Structure, Firm Size, Scalability, Stock Market, Corporate Governance.

How to Cite:

Deodat E. Adenutsi. Ownership Structure, Firm Size and Scalability: An Analysis of Government, Foreign, and Shareholding Effects of Listed Companies in Ghana. [ref]: vol.22.2024. available at: https://refpress.org/ref-vol22-a40/